Soul-baring and furious, the documentary 1232 KMS takes a powerful, unflinching look at the aftermath of a nationwide crisis. On the evening of March 24, 2020, the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, ordered a nationwide lockdown, limiting movement of the entire population as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 pandemic, and inducing an economic crisis that affected the lives and livelihoods of daily wage workers. Deprived of employment, millions of laborers set off on foot, or bicycle, to their hometowns. Director Vinod Kapri, a National Film Award winner, chronicles the journey of seven such helpless individuals and honors their determination to fight against the odds during what is considered the largest human exodus since the partition of India.

Dipankar Sarkar: In your previous documentary, Can’t Take This Shit Anymore, six women from Kheisha village in Uttar Pradesh’s Kushinagar district flee their marital homes and return to their parents because of the absence of toilets. And 1232 KMS narrates the journey of seven migrant workers who confront umpteen challenges to return to their village in Saharsa Bihar from Delhi during the nationwide lockdown in 2020. Are you interested in this kind of subject that commemorates the indomitable human spirit that shows up in the face of adversity?

Vinod Kapri: Through my films, I want to celebrate the power of the human spirit and speak about such stories. Today, we are discussing such stories because a documentary has been made but numerous such stories in our country have not been touched upon. In the year 2014, no one would have imagined a documentary made upon the logline that six ladies in a certain part of rural India leave their respective husband’s houses because there was no facility of a toilet within the compound. When I was shooting the documentary in 2014, I had never thought that the Prime Minister of India would announce the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA) program in August, on the eve of India’s 67th year of independence from the Red Fort. Under the program, people living below and above the poverty line can avail reimbursement for constructing toilets at the household level. In the year 2017, a feature film titled Toilet: Ek Prem Katha was made based on the same theme, which was a good step. So I believe that one has to take up the challenge to tell such stories which need to be told and reach a wider audience around the world. It is unfortunate that despite winning a National Film Award, the documentary could not reach a wider audience, because documentaries made in India have a niche audience pool. Few people saw it at various festivals and television channels and then it disappeared. But since the documentary 1232 KMS is now available on the OTT platform Disney+ Hotstar VIP, more and more people [are] viewing it. They are realizing how much we had disappointed lakhs of daily wage laborers of our nation [during the nationwide lockdown in 2020]. So it is my responsibility as a storyteller and documentary filmmaker that I should tell stories that are untouched and important for society. So I choose my stories solely because I feel they need to be told without giving a thought to their commercial aspect.

DS: What were the hurdles you had to overcome during the shooting of 1232 KMS?

VK: I was in touch with the daily wage laborers for two weeks and knew about the daily wage laborers’ plan of travel. But the day they had embarked upon their journey, they did not inform me. Only after they had traveled 50 km I came to know about it through a phone call. So at this juncture, the biggest hurdle was to decide if I wanted to travel with them or not. The second hurdle was, due to the pandemic, I was not able to assemble the crew members that would travel along with me. It was even difficult to get hold of the equipment required for the shooting. No taxi vendor was available to rent a vehicle. On the 27th of April 2020, the number of cases of people infected with the COVID-19 virus was rising at an alarming rate in India, so my family was also worried about my decision. But my resolution was firm, and I had made up my mind that this journey needs to be documented. Fortunately, I had a professional camera Sony FS5 in my house, and I knew its basic operations. So, I went to shoot armed with the camera and a lapel mic. I did not have a tripod or boom mics during the shoot. Then, I did not know what kind of footage I was going to get. But it was a better choice to follow the laborers rather than sitting at home and doing nothing. As we started shooting, depending upon the situation, we operated the camera handheld and at times tied the camera on the car as a makeshift arrangement. I was not even sure regarding the quality of the footage and the audio, but the blessings of the almighty were with us and everything went very smoothly. While I was shooting along with my long-time associate, I realized that it was not the journey of seven but nine laborers, that includes both of us. All of us were facing the same difficulties — the only difference was they were riding bicycles and we were following them in our five-seater Hatchback.

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DS: While you were shooting, did you have any structure in your mind?

VK: To be honest, we did not have any structure in our mind. As I kept traveling with them on the sixth day as the laborers found a bus at Gopalganj, a small town in Bihar, I thought that the journey of the documentary had come to an end. But as they reach Saharsa city at 3 a.m. and food was not availed to them by the concerned administration, we realized that the story of these laborers’ struggle had not yet ended. The next day, when they were taken to the stadium and still the food was not distributed until noon, I discovered that now I had a complete film in my hands. So, I would like to say that we were capturing all the events that were unfolding before us. During that moment, I was very sure that the journey undertaken by them was a life and death sort of situation and we should be supportive, help and be a part of their journey. My approach was more humanistic, and in the process, if the documentary got made, it is well and good. If not, then it is absolutely fine with me.

DS: One of the characters, Ram Babu Pandit, who is a mason by profession, says that this is a disease caused and brought in by the rich, and the poor laborers have to bear the brunt of it. Does such a comment highlight the apathetic side of Indian society towards laborers?

VK: There is absolute truth in what Ram Babu is saying. And it is not only him but also the millions of daily laborers of our country who are well aware of the fact that it is the laborer class of the Indian society who had to suffer the most due to the pandemic, which entered India from the rich passengers commuting in flights from foreign nations. The daily wage laborers are one of the most important building blocks of our nation who provides a helping hand in the construction of roadways, houses, bridges, railways, etc. But during the time of such a global crisis, the general people of the society — government organizations, NGOs — all of them had abandoned them mercilessly. When Ram Babu and Ritesh (another laborer) had made a video of their dire circumstances, I had tweeted it on the 12th of April tagging the UP police and the DM of Ghaziabad. As a result, they got a call from the UP police helpline and were rebuked for making a video instead of calling the authorities. At this, the helpless laborers informed them that they had called the helpline multiple times but did not get any sort of help. They were running out of their food stock and were hungry for the past two days. So under such circumstances, how is one suppose to behave?

DS: At the beginning of the documentary, the laborers narrate about the atrocities of the policemen who beat them and do not let them cross the bridge. But later they also help the laborers by providing them with food, and Raj Kumar, Home Guard of UP, helps by bringing a tube for the cycle tire. Later in Saharsa, one of the police behaves rudely with them. All this creates a contrasting image of the police department in our minds. What are your comments?

VK: The documentary is not only the journey of seven laborers but also a journey of life. So when the journey of laborers begin, they are beaten by the police officials, and then truck drivers help them without worrying about the consequences, and then there is a point where the policemen help them with food, and then comes a moment when the policemen behave rudely with them. And then we meet policemen who express their helplessness in providing them with food. So in the course of the journey of our lives, we come across different kinds of people that [are] good, bad... and some of them [are]  unexpectedly surprised, just like the Raj Kumar. We had never asked him for any help. He had involuntarily helped us by bringing the tube of the cycle.

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DS: The stadium sequence in Saharsa presents us with a sloppy situation that reflects the lack of planning amongst the concerned government officials.

VK: The sequence is an obvious critique of the government procedures. The government had lined up several buses at the border of the state of Bihar, Gopalganj so that the laborers can go to their respective houses. It was a good attempt by the administration. But there was a lack of proper coordination between the concerned government officials. The laborers board the bus at noon and reach the area Saharsa at 3 a.m. Throughout the journey, none of the laborers were provided with a morsel of food. And they were deprived of food until the next day [at] noon. Rakesh Kumar, the director of the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA), was not at all aware of such incompetent arrangements due to the lack of coordination between themselves. And the sad thing is this [happened] on the 2nd and 3rd of May, 2020, which is 40 days after the nationwide lockdown had been announced. And yet the government is not prepared to face the crisis. This pathetic situation reflects the insensitive attitude of our government, irrespective of belonging to any political parties of our country. They had never treated the laborers as humans.

DS: As the documentary ends, we are informed that the daily wage laborers were returning to the city. Does this become quite an ironic situation?

VK: The bigger question is why did they leave their villages and have to go to the city in the first place? And the simple answer is there were no prospects of a job or any kind of work in their rural habitat. Understandably, for five months you can stay at your house, in the village, during the lockdown. You have your paddy fields, so the grains are stored. Savings of the laborers’ hard-earned money and their families are there to support lives. But after that, their resources start to run out because they have zero income. And thus they are compelled to return. On the other, the government is not able to provide any of them with a job in the present. And in the future, too, there does not seem to be any such scope.

DS: Share the process of editing the documentary.

VK: It was wonderful. The editor, Hemanti Sarkar, is an alumnus of the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, and a National Film Award Winner. She has a huge body of work that comprises feature films and documentaries. I have heard a lot about her, and so got in touch with her from Delhi. But at that time, she was editing an upcoming Bollywood film in Mumbai starring a popular actor and had no time to edit the documentary. But I told her that I have a lot of time, and [asked] if she could spare some time to watch the footage that I had shot. She agreed and after watching the footage, she had not only liked it but also agreed to edit the film. But as she began the edit, an unfortunate event occurred and she had to rush to Kolkata, where she got stuck for two weeks because flights [were] not available because of the lockdown. We communicated through Zoom and video calls during this period. When she returned to Mumbai, she made multiple edits of the film, and after each edit, there was an elaborate procedure we had followed. She used to make a .mov file of the edit and upload it in Google drive and then send me the link. I used to make notes based on the timecode and then would share my thoughts with her. She would then edit another version and we followed the same process. There were agreements and disagreements between us, but I always gave importance to her opinion. Because I believed that since I was an integral part of this journey, I was emotionally attached to the documentary. But she is observing the footage with a fresh perspective, and I trusted her gut feelings. And in this entire process of editing, we have not met each other face to face.

DS: Did your background in journalism help you as a filmmaker?

VK: Absolutely. I was a journalist for 22-23 years and that has helped to develop a conviction in all my decisions in life. When I had set out to shoot this documentary, I was fearless because I had confronted such a difficult situation in my professional life a lot. So I was not worried about the consequences, and if worst comes to worst, I will be infected with corona. Or the police will arrest me for flouting the lockdown rules. But I was determined. Being a journalist has destroyed my fear of confronting life and death situations. I was not at all worried about the administrative obstacle that I had to confront during the making of this documentary. Secondly, my background has also provided me with a perspective regarding any problem. And thirdly, such a background also complements a filmmaking background. So the documentary — instead of being just a news story — has developed more into a human story. In the process of filmmaking, the first thing that I have learned is to identify the characters, their emotions and their world in such a way that when I enter into their stories, I should either fall in love or hate these characters.

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DS: Do you think that this documentary will alter our perception towards the daily wage laborers of our country?

VK: Yes, I am confident that there will be a change. People who have seen this documentary, so far, are expressing themselves through their comments on social media. And most of them have a common opinion that during the lockdown they were worried about problems that were minuscule in comparison to the hardships faced by the daily wage laborers of our country. They are now feeling guilty for letting those helpless laborers down. And their perceptions are surely changing.

DS: Did this entire process change you as an individual?

VK: It has for sure. The daily wage laborers are the supporting staff of our nation. Without their presence, it is very difficult to run our daily life. When we have a problem with our cupboard, we require a carpenter to mend it. To plaster the walls of our house, we require a mason. We need them to iron our clothes as well as provide us security by guarding the gate of our respective societies and buildings. But we are usually ignorant towards them. Ninety percent of the general public are not aware of their names, family members or hometown. So now after my journey of making this documentary, these people are no longer a nameless entity for me. I ask their names and where are they from. And I believe that people who have watched this film will also develop similar concerns for the laborers and start respecting their feelings.

Dipankar Sarkar is a graduate in film editing from the Film and Television Institute of India and currently based in Mumbai. As a freelancer, he frequently contributes to various Indian publications on cinema-related topics.